[dns-operations] Update: FreeBSD and the slaving of the root zone

[Doug Barton]

Jo Rhett wrote:
> On Aug 2, 2007, at 8:48 PM, bmanning at vacation.karoshi.com wrote:
>> 	very interesting answer...  i'm interested in how
>> 	the FreeBSD project gauges concensus in adding new
>> 	features/capabilities.  is this a demonstratable
>> 	process?
> 
> It doesn't really.   It generally does things based on merit and good  
> argument,

That's pretty accurate. Throw in "rough developer consensus" and
you've got a deal.

> but that process is obviously controlled by the current  
> core team,

This isn't the "FreeBSD development model" list, so I'll just say that
it would be more accurate to say that the core team steps in if
developers can't reach agreement on their own.

> and who is paying attention at the time.

Well that's pretty much true of everything, right? :)

>> throwing up your hands and walking away
>> 	does not seem to align w/ your assertions that
>> 	the change is defenseable in the FreeBSD community.
> 
> It's not.  It was argued against quite a while and Doug did it anyway.

The list traffic was more or less divided between:
1. It's a bad idea
2. It's a good idea, but shouldn't be the default
3. It's a good idea

Thus the change to having it commented out, but present in the default
conf file.

The closest thing to a "consensus statement" that we're going to get
is from a message that was posted today:

As another person with no ax to grind, my sense is that this was a
professional albeit heated discussion.  Briefly, it seems to me that
Doug introduced changes with no prior discussion - this was his only
real fault, and for this he has appropriately apologized.

The result of the heated discussion was that the slave zone thingy was
turned into an option rather than the default.  As far as I am
concerned, this is an entirely satisfactory resolution, and shows that
the discussions had their desired effect.  That the discussions became
a little heated merely shows that we are human beings.  The main thing
is  that everyone was upfront and honest about their agendas, and that
the matter was resolved in the appropriate technical manner.

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=634948+0+current/freebsd-stable

Bill, if that works for you, great, please let me know that you'd like
to be included in the commented out example.

Doug

-- 

	If you're never wrong, you're not trying hard enough